Unable to overcome the objections of the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), the company moved its research to the outskirts of London, keeping its projects in the United States going, while setting up new ones in Austria and Israel. Bezos has made it clear that if nations want to attract technology, research, jobs and create new economies, they will have to adapt quickly.

In just three years, Amazon has gone from an announcement dismissed by many people to sending real packages to real and paying customers. The speed at which technology evolves can still surprise us, taking us from incredulity to reality within astonishingly short time frames